


In the Still of the Night

by LaughWhileCrying



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Blood Drinking, But it's there, F/M, Mild Blood, Supernatural Elements, Vampire Javier Escuella, Vampires, creepy courtship rituals, it's not explicit, no beta we die like women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20932970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughWhileCrying/pseuds/LaughWhileCrying
Summary: When she was a little girl, her mother warned her about people like Javier. “Never open your home to creatures of the night, mija. They will steal you away and take your heart for themselves.”Honestly? That's kind of what she was hoping for.





	In the Still of the Night

“Is everyone in your gang like you?” she asked, brushing a lock of hair away from his closed eyes.

It had been eleven months since she’d last seen Javier; eleven long months of no contact, of worrying, and of wondering if he was still alive. If he’d ever had any real intentions of coming back for her.

She’d almost convinced herself that he’d been a dream – some sort of wish or story that she’d heard as a child. In the beginning, she’d press the pads of her fingers against the healing wounds left behind, secretly thrilling in the little jolt of pain that ran through her upon her touch. They’d sustained her, and reminded her of Javier and the promise he’d made.

But days faded into weeks, weeks into months, and the marks faded into her skin, leaving her with nothing but a memory.

He’d warned her that they wouldn’t scar; marks like those never do, he said. But oh, how she’d hoped that they were the exception.

Many times, a small voice in her head would tell her that he was gone, that he was never coming back for her. But she knew better. He left her with his heart and sooner or later, he’d be back for it.

He’d promised.

And eleven months later, he did.

He appeared in the dead of the night, as always, rousing her from a deep sleep with a gentle whisper of her name. The light of the moon streamed into the room from behind him, illuminating her tiny bedroom but rendering him a dark figure looming outside. She couldn’t see his features, couldn’t quite see who the shadowy figure beckoning her closer was, but it didn’t matter.

With a murmur of her name, she knew.

“Javier,” she breathed out. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. She was terrified that if she spoke too loud, he’d disappear.

“Amante,” he said. “Let me in.”

So she did.

Without a word she threw the bed-covers off, walked to the window, flicked the latch, and pulled the wide glass panes open to let him step in. He smiled. His hooded eyes met hers and she felt pinned in place as he stepped through the window, never breaking his gaze.

“Javier,” she whispered again. Her mind had frozen upon recognizing him, stuck and unable to think of anything but: _he’s here he’s here he’s here._

The sound of her pounding heart thundered in her ears.

_Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump_

_It’s you!_ Her heart cried. _It’s me – your love, your darling. It’s you; you’re home!_

It pounded like if it tried hard enough, it would either force her to move forward towards him or leap out of her chest into its rightful place in Javier’s hands.

She felt like she could leap for joy and spin around the room like a little girl, so happy and light at seeing Javier again, but she was frozen in place by his piercing gaze.

He huffed a laugh upon hearing her racing heart. She knew he can hear and feel every beat.

“Did you miss me cariño?” he asked, teasingly. There was a smirk on his lips, coy and casual, as if he was unaffected by it all. But she knew him and knew the look of longing in his eyes. She missed him; he knew this. And he missed her too.

“Every second,” she said.

The smirk fell at her honesty, her refusal to play the game. He opened his mouth to reply before shutting it quickly. Instead of saying anything, he rushed forward, closing the short distance between them. He pulled her into his arms and buried his face into her curls.

She pressed herself into his chest, so cold and so warm at the same time.

This is where she belonged. Where they belonged. Together in her darkened bedroom, wrapped around each other like nothing else existed.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he said into her hair. “We had to run, farther away than we anticipated. Those hunters,” he hissed the word, tightening her grip on her but not to the point of pain. “They’re getting stronger, more clever. Dutch thinks they’re growing in numbers.”

She knew this.

She’d heard the talk on the streets, in the saloons she waited tables in, the pitches at the gallows and by the jails as she walked on by. Join the Pinkerton Detective Agency, they cried. Join and protect your country from the monsters who would take it from you.

It seemed like every young man her town and the ones nearby wanted a piece of the action. Or at least said they did to avoid losing face with their friends. It was hard to tell. Nevertheless, the Pinkertons wanted people to fear and to hate the creatures who they shared this land with, so fear and hate is what they got.

In all except for her, that is.

“It was difficult even getting here,” Javier continued. “Seems like everywhere we look there’s wards and hunters ready to swoop in. Luckily, most of what they use as protection doesn’t actually work.”

She laughed at his smug tone.

“I’m glad you’re here, Javier,” she said. “I knew you’d come back eventually.”

“Of course I would. I can’t let some man with longer teeth than me come swooping in and steal you away.”

She laughed again, louder this time, and pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. “Never,” she said with a smile.

And that’s when he kissed her. The first time was a chaste press of their lips, a shiver running down her spine at both her delight and the feeling of his cold skin against hers. The second time was deeper, nearly a year’s worth of longing flowing out of every pore, making her feel dizzy and weightless. His hands cupped her face, his thumbs pressing into and caressing her cheeks. Her hands reached up, one tangling into and mussing his usually immaculately hair, the other gripping the back of his neck. She was gripping too hard, but with the noise Javier made as her fingers dug into the muscle, she knew that he wasn’t going to complain.

He quickly picked her up, placing her gently on her bed, and laid himself atop her. Never once did he stop kissing her – kissing her lips, her face, her eyes, her ears. He reached down to the high neck collar of her nightgown and growled when he couldn’t find the buttons to grant him access. She pulled away from him and sat up just enough to grasp at the tiny buttons that lined the back of the nightgown, undoing them one at a time, as quickly as she could.

She’d unbuttoned enough so that hung just slightly off her shoulders, revealing skin still tanned from the fading summer, from her jaw to just below her collarbones.

Javier dove towards her, groaning like a he was a man dying of thirst and she’d given him a drop of water. He kissed and licked and sucked at the delicate skin, leaving beautiful bruises that she would wear like badges of honor.

He groaned her name against her skin. She couldn’t help but think, in the back of her mind, that he sounded like he was praying. He laved at the skin on her neck, but never once gave either of them the pleasure that they both so wanted. He’d come so close, teeth grazing against her skin in a way that made her clutch at his arms and sigh in anticipation.

And then he pulled back, pressing a sweet kiss instead.

“Did you keep it safe for me?” he asked suddenly as he trailed his lips down her collarbone, pausing at the tops of her exposed breasts. He said the words casually, as if the answer didn’t even matter. Maybe it didn’t; maybe he didn’t care what she did with it as long as it remained hers. Maybe he already knew the answer, but wanted her to say the words herself.

“Yes,” she said, “of course I did.”

Her eyes fluttered closed as he pressed a kiss, tongue swiping gently along her skin. “Thank you,” he murmured. “I knew you would. Will you show me?”

She nodded shakily. She wanted to protest, to tell him to finish what he started, but this was important. He pulled away and she pushed herself up off her bed. His eyes were fixed on her as she walked around her room, barefoot with her nightgown slipping lower and lower with each step. She vaguely wondered what kind of sight she made.

She opened the chest beside her bed. Her fingers shook as she removed the false bottom and pulled out the small, plain wooden box he’d given her when he’d left her last time, the one who’s key she kept either on her or on her bedside table, always within her reach.

His face was unreadable as she sat down and placed the box between them. For a moment, she almost asked, but her breath had been stolen the second she placed her hands on the box. She opened it and a strong surge of emotion slammed into her, leaving her light-headed and breathless.

There, nestled in silk as white as untouched snow, lay the small, still beating heart that once occupied Javier’s chest.

The heart that was now hers to protect.

She didn’t touch it. Instead, she ran her trembling fingers along the edges of the box, caressing it like she had its previous owner mere moments ago.

Javier's hands covered hers. She could feel his love, clear from his heart by her hand and the intensity in his eyes. With his heart so close, she could feel it all – the love he had for her, the confusion at how she could ever love a creature like him, and the promise of pain and death to anyone who would try to harm her or keep them apart. His want for her.

In the very beginning, she’d been overwhelmed by the depth of his emotions, by the power she had over him and him over her.

But now, she wasn’t afraid. With his heart in her hands, she could never be afraid again.

Javier closed the box gently, placing it back in the chest, secure under the false bottom. Then, he urged her back onto the bed and draped himself back over her.

“All this time,” he said, voice deep and raspy from the strain of holding himself back. “And you still want this? Want me?”

She almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. “I’ll always want you, Javier.”

She felt him shudder in her hands and dip his head down towards her neck.

“Entonces, me tienes. Te quiero, amante,” he said, sounding almost breathless. “Guardián de mi alma, te amo. For as long as I live.”

“Forever,” she said.

He smiled. “Forever.”

He sunk his teeth into the side of her throat and neither of them came up for air for a long while after that.

-

It wasn’t until much later, when the sky was beginning to lighten with falling moon and sun that was preparing to rise, that the question came up.

He was laying with his head in her lap, content and filled to the brim with her blood and love. Her fingers were absently combing through his hair, smiling at the contended noises he let out every so often. They’d talked for hours, catching each other up on their lives during the time they were apart and babbling whatever nonsense popped into their head to make the other laugh.

“Is everyone in your gang like you?” she asked. There was so little that she knew about the men and women that he ran with when he wasn’t with her. Some of the men in the Van Der Linde gang were creatures, that much she knew. It seemed every day she came across a bounty with one of their pictures on it reading, “GROSS BREACHES OF HUMANITY,” mixed in with the list of crimes. The Van Der Linde gang wasn’t the only group that the Pinkerton’s were after, but they sure were the most talked about.

Javier didn’t open his eyes as he answered: “Somewhat. Dutch is – except he was turned, and I was born. Arthur, John, and Charles are wolves – mean bastards every day but especially the night before the full moon. Sean is something that I can’t pronounce. Fae-related, I think he said, the Irish bastard. Mary-Beth and Uncle claim that they’re both shifters; Mary-Beth I believe but I still haven’t seen Uncle do more than sit around and be useless. The rest of them though, Hosea, Miss Grimshaw, Micah, and the others? They’re all human.”

She considered this. “So, it isn’t…unusual for a human to run with your group?” she asked, as casually as she could.

Clearly, she wasn’t nonchalant enough, though, as Javier opened his eyes and propped himself up on one arm. There was a surprised and cautious look on his face, undetectable to anyone who didn’t know his soul.

“No,” he said, slowly. “No, I guess it isn’t. Why do you ask?”

She swallowed and turned her face away from him. She looked out at her door, her empty room connected to an empty house, which sat alone just outside of a town that wasn’t empty but held no love for women like her.

She thought back to her parents, so far away and uncaring of whatever their unruly, disappointment of a daughter did with her life as long as she did it away from them. She thought of the long months sat alone at her little dining table, sitting in the silence with only her thoughts and memories of friends, family, and love.

She thought of the pain she felt when she watched Javier ride away from her. Even though he promised to return, she never had a guarantee, and she was still alone in the meantime.

She looked back down to Javier. There was a drop of blood at the corner of his mouth, her blood. She wiped it away with the pad of her thumb and brought it to her mouth, letting the tang of copper unfurl on her tongue and the pupils of Javier’s eyes dilate just so.

She smiled, placing her hand back on Javier’s face. He immediately reached up to cover it with his, a smile of his own matching hers. He knew what she was thinking but was waiting for her to say it. To ask him.

He’d never even dream of refusing.

“Don’t leave me here next time you go,” she said, watching as Javier’s grin grew wider with each word. “The next time you plan to leave, I’m going with you.”

It wasn’t a request; it was a fact.

And Javier had never been one to disappoint a beautiful woman.

-

When she was a little girl, her mother warned her about people like Javier. “Never open your home to creatures of the night, mija. They will steal you away and take your heart for themselves.”

And what did you know?

She was right.

**Author's Note:**

> it's halloween babey  
so this is the first time i've ever written any kind of romance and it's this mess lmao  
hope you enjoyed!


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